


Let Me Hear It

by PsychoMantis



Category: The Evil Within (Video Game)
Genre: Blood, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff, Injury, Joseb - Freeform, Languages and Linguistics, M/M, Minor Injuries, Minor Violence, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-04
Updated: 2015-01-04
Packaged: 2018-03-05 07:42:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3111662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PsychoMantis/pseuds/PsychoMantis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joseph swaps languages, particularly when Sebastian is being a complete idiot. Sebastian decides that he wants to hear Joseph speak Japanese more often, and acts like an idiot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let Me Hear It

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt about Joseph switching languages that I got on my tumblr (http://trashwrites.tumblr.com if you want to send me some, too).
> 
> Apologies all around for my complete inability to write/translate Japanese. "Translations" (or "what I thought I was saying") will be in an a note at the end.

“Think we found our suspect?” Sebastian shouted, looking back at Joseph.

He leaned over the hood of their car and leveled his pistol at the utility pole. He’d seen the suspect duck behind it before they took cover.

The sound of gun fire rang out and Sebastian felt the unnerving sensation of something flying over their heads. They both hit the ground.

“I just asked if he knew about the bakery! How does that warrant a shootout?” Joseph shouted back, peering over the car’s trunk.

Sebastian shrugged and stood up, determined to get the gunman in his sights this time. He probably would have if the gunman hadn’t had the same idea. Sebastian was grateful for the man’s poor aim when a bullet slammed harmlessly into the car’s windshield near his arm.

“Jesus, shit,” Sebastian hissed, ducking behind the car. He overcompensated and smacked his shoulder into the door, hard.

“Be careful! You hit?” Joseph said from his left.

There was a metallic ringing noise as a few bullets ricocheted off the car.

“No, I’m good.”

“Guess we’re just holed up here while we wait for backup,” Joseph said. He took the moment to re-load his pistol.

“Like hell we are,” Sebastian said, checking his gun’s chamber, “’Gonna get that son of a bitch.”

“Sebastian, don’t!”

There was a silence that extended into the next several minutes.

Sebastian jumped up, taking direct aim at the gunman’s last position. Time stretched on as he waited for the man to show himself.

“C’mon, c’mon,” Sebastian grumbled.

“伏せろ!”

It didn’t register in time that Joseph had said anything, never mind that he couldn’t understand the words anyway. Before Sebastian could turn and ask for clarification, there was a gunshot and a searing pain in his left shoulder.

“彼は彼の位置を変えた！ばか!”

Joseph pulled Sebastian down, checking his face and pulse before patting his shoulder. His glove came away wet with blood.

“Ow! Shit, watch it!” Sebastian said.

“あなたが出血して！愚かな嫌いな人。”

“Joseph, what the fuck are you saying right now?”

Joseph looked at Sebastian blankly a moment, grimacing and pulling a handkerchief out of his vest pocket. He tied it around the bullet graze, ignoring Sebastian’s grunted protest.

“What…language are you speaking?” Sebastian said.

“My very own special made up kind! The fuck do you think?” Joseph snapped.

“Language, Jojo.”

“Reckless jackass.”

“I’m scandalized.”

“You’re staying put until the SWAT gets here and deals with him.”

As if on cue, they heard sirens, and a black, armored van pulled up. Joseph visibly relaxed.

“You’ve never spoken Japanese around me before,” Sebastian said, smiling.

“Now is not the time, Sebastian,” Joseph said. He was glancing through the car’s windows, watching as the SWAT team advanced and knocked the suspect unconscious.

Joseph wordlessly grabbed Sebastian’s uninjured arm and pulled him towards the ambulance that had wheeled in.

\---

It seemed a little unfair to tease Joseph about the incident. It was also probably more than a little inappropriate. Then again, Sebastian couldn’t remember a time when concepts like “appropriate” and “fair” had ever stopped him before.

“Say something in Japanese,” Sebastian said.

Joseph glared over his glasses at him. After a moment of judgmental silence, Joseph returned to the paperwork on his desk.

“C’mon,” Sebastian said with a grin, “I want to hear it.”

“Get back to work, Castellanos.”

Sebastian leaned back on his desk, watching Joseph fill out paperwork. He promised himself that he would find a way to make his partner do it again.

Joseph looked up at him suspiciously.

“Why are you staring at me?” Joseph said.

Sebastian smiled again and shrugged, turning back to his desk. He made a great show of fussing with the paperwork, although of course he wasn’t interested in actually finishing any of it.

\---

The solution came, as solutions so often do, completely by accident the next day.

Sebastian perched on the countertop of the break-room, watching Joseph flip through a sheaf of case-files.

“The whole concept of ‘taking a break’ means not working, Joseph,” Sebastian said.

“What's the point of you taking a break when you never work,” Joseph said.

“Ouch.”

“Shut up. Reading.”

Sebastian obliged, if only because he couldn’t think of any good way to get a rise out of Joseph. He stirred his coffee and let his mind wander, content to actually take advantage of their infrequent breaks.

A few minutes later, Kidman burst into the break-room. She was never actually excited about anything, never seemed to have a purpose to the sudden and jarring nature of her entrances. She was just incapable of doing things quietly or calmly.

Sebastian sloshed coffee onto the counter. Joseph scattered the papers he’d been reading all over the table.

“くそ！”

“Kid, you did it!” Sebastian said, jumping down from the counter. 

Julie glanced between both of them with a blank expression.

“Did what?” she said.

Joseph glared at Sebastian while he gathered up the papers. His cheeks were starting to color beneath the dark rims of his glasses. Sebastian didn’t answer Kidman, just grabbed his coffee and left the room.

“I’ll be in the office,” Sebastian called from the doorway. 

Kidman stared at Joseph, who only shrugged. 

\---

Joseph had been too busy reading to notice that there was anything out of place in the office when he opened the door.

“Hey, Seb, could you take a look at this report when you get a –“

A hand shot out, grasping Joseph’s shoulder from somewhere in the darkness of the office. Joseph fumbled his stack of papers to the ground for the second time that day.

“雌犬の息子!”

Josephjerked backward from the invading hand, moving too fast to catch himself, and stumbled backward to the ground. 

Then there was a deep, familiar laugh.

“Bastard,” Joseph hissed.

The lights flicked on and Sebastian stood over him, shaking with laughter. He extended a hand out.

Joseph took it and set himself back on his feet, scowling at Sebastian.

“Sorry Jojo, had to see if my theory was correct,” Sebastian said, stooping to pick up some of the papers that had littered the floor.

“Your theory that people grabbing me from a dark room freaks me out?” Joseph said.

Sebastian glanced up and grinned at the flush of color on Joseph’s face.

“Seriously, I didn’t think you’d be that scared,” Sebastian said.

“I wasn’t scared, I was startled,” Joseph said, taking the stack of papers from Sebastian.

“Whatever you say.”

“There’s a difference.”

“Sure there is.”

“Go to hell, Sebastian.”

\---

Sebastian bought Joseph lunch the next day as an apology. They stopped at a small diner on their way back to the precinct, pulling their jackets closer against the miserable, drizzling rain.

“You only get your food if you promise not to work through this lunch break,” Sebastian said, hovering the tray over Joseph’s head.

Joseph rolled his eyes and grabbed the tray from Sebastian.

“Fine,” Joseph said, smiling.

They talked idly about the case they’d been working on- the relative relief that this one, at least, hadn’t involved bullets thus far. It was a normal afternoon, comfortingly normal. So normal that Joseph was genuinely not expecting it when Sebastian wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled him closer on their walk back to the car.

“何...”

“Hah! So that works too, huh?” Sebastian said, not releasing his hold on Joseph.

Joseph was blushing again. He pulled away from Sebastian angrily outside their car.

“Sebastian…have you been pulling this ‘surprise me’ shit just hear me yell things in Japanese?”

Sebastian shrugged, smiling sheepishly.

“Maybe. Kinda.” 

“What do you mean, ‘Maybe-Kinda’?” Joseph said, squinting at Sebastian suspiciously.

“I mean yes, that’s kind of what I was doing,” Sebastian said, running a hand through his damp hair. 

Joseph frowned and shook his head while Sebastian got in the car. 

\---

“Why do you want to hear me speak Japanese anyway?” Joseph asked.

They had been driving in comfortable quiet for a while, Joseph sitting and contemplating his partner silently in the passenger’s seat.

Sebastian glanced away from the road with a shrug.

“Idunno. It’s…” Sebastian trailed off and shrugged again.

“It’s what?” Joseph said.

Sebastian’s face screwed up into an expression that Joseph couldn’t quite place. Something between irritation and embarrassment.

“Well?” Joseph said.

“It’s cute,” Sebastian said. It came out more gruffly than he’d probably intended.

“Oh.”

Joseph turned to the window, watching the rain come down in sheets.

“Cute?” Joseph said, feeling his cheeks go hot for what felt like the hundredth time that week.

“That’s what I said,” Sebastian grunted, and if Joseph wasn’t incorrect, he was flushing now, too.

The silence for the rest of the drive was less comfortable.

\---

Neither of them brought up the subject of Joseph’s bilingual skills - Sebastian’s eagerness to experience them - for nearly a whole day.

Joseph was cautiously optimistic that the whole thing had been put to rest by Sebastian’s awkward admission. Even if it _had_ been an intriguing admission. Even if Joseph did kind of want Sebastian to elaborate on that “cute” thing. Wanted some clarification on what it meant- for professional reasons, of course.

He was all too aware that ‘cautious optimism’ and ‘Sebastian’ rarely meshed, though.

They managed to get through a fairly peaceful workday. No emergencies, just routine questioning, and the ever-present specter of paperwork at the office.

Joseph was at ease. He sat on the floor in front of his desk, surrounded by boxes and folders. He had taken advantage of the fact that he’d finished his own paperwork early and decided to organize (and re-organize) all the case files they kept.

It was a job Joseph secretly enjoyed. He found filing meditative. Joseph ended up completely losing track of time and place, lost in his own little world of organizing, labeling, and dating.

By the time he became aware of the figure getting closer and closer to him, it was too late.

He jerked at the sensation of warm lips pressed to the corner of his mouth, stubble against his skin.

“何てことだ!”

Joseph fell backward, knocking over a crate.

“What do you have against me doing paperwork?” Joseph groaned, lying on his back. He threw an arm over his face in a vain attempt to block the fact that he was blushing again.

“Really? That’s what you’re choosing to react to right now?” Sebastian said. 

He dropped to sit across from Joseph on the floor, sweeping the folders back into their crate.

“It was the first thing I could think of,” Joseph said, adjusting his glasses. He propped himself up on his elbows and blinked at Sebastian.

“Did you just kiss me?” Joseph said.

Sebastian shrugged, staring resolutely at the crate. He fiddled with the corner of a folder nervously.

“I wasn’t trying to startle you that time, to be fair,” Sebastian said.

“What were you trying to do?”

Sebastian was blank for a second.

“I was trying to kiss you.”

Joseph sat himself up, staring and trying to will the heat in his face away. He watched Sebastian stuff folders haphazardly, putting them completely out of order.

“You’re doing that wrong,” Joseph mumbled.

“Are you doing that on purpose?” Sebastian said, continuing with the folders as though he hadn’t heard.

“Doing what?”

“Changing the subject.”

Joseph looked resentful. He grabbed the folders from Sebastian’s hands and tried to shuffle them back into order.

Sebastian leaned forward onto his knees and took Joseph’s face between his hands. He pressed their lips together gently, running his thumb along Joseph’s cheek.

He held his breath, running his tongue along Joseph’s lower lip, waiting for some kind of reaction.

Joseph moaned, quiet and subdued, against Sebastian’s mouth. Sebastian ran his fingers through Joseph’s hair and parted his lips slightly when Joseph leaned into him, crushing their mouths together.

Sebastian tilted his face, letting their open mouths slip together, running his tongue along his partner’s experimentally. Joseph bit softly on Sebastian’s lip, exploring his mouth with his tongue at the growling noise of approval Sebastian made.

They pulled apart slowly, breathing hard. Sebastian took advantage of Joseph’s stunned silence to trail his lips down Joseph’s jaw-line until he reached the crook of his jaw and neck, where he licked at the skin there.

“ああ-ああ, 神…” Joseph said in a strangled voice.

Sebastian burst into laughter.

“Whoa, that works too, huh?” Sebastian said, stroking his fingers along the back of Joseph’s neck.

Joseph covered his face with his hands, shaking his head slightly.

“You’re such a jerk, Seb.”

“Sorry.”

Sebastian kissed Joseph on the cheek.

“Can I try to coax some more out of you?” Sebastian whispered, letting his lips graze Joseph’s ear.

Joseph shivered and leaned against him for a moment.

“後の方. 仕事の後.”

“What?”

“Later. At my place,” Joseph said with a smirk.

Sebastian frowned and slumped onto Joseph’s shoulder with an exaggerated groan. Joseph pushed him off and slid one of the filing crates over to him.

“ _Maybe_. If you help me get these all in order,” Joseph added.

He’d never seen Sebastian put so much effort into paperwork before.

**Author's Note:**

> In order:
> 
> *“Get down!”
> 
> *”He changed his position! Moron!”
> 
> *”You’re bleeding! Stupid asshole.”
> 
> *”Fuck!”
> 
> *”Son of a bitch!”
> 
> *”What…”
> 
> *”Oh my god!”
> 
> *”Oh-Oh god…”


End file.
